Barbati Column: Just another Super Bowl, as usual

Next Sunday's Super Bowl will be exactly like every other Super Bowl for 99.9 percent of Sussex County.

It's being held in New Jersey? So what? We'll all be watching on TV, as usual.

The endless pre-game shows will be ridiculous, as usual. The 6:25 p.m. kickoff time is ridiculous, as usual.

Who wants to party on a Sunday night?

If guests show up early, they'll be all partied out by game time. The non-football fans will be bored, the kids will be cranky and Uncle Roy will be out back throwing up in the bushes again.

What ever happened to a 4 p.m. kickoff? It's what football fans are used to. You can plan a whole day around a 4 p.m. kickoff. You start the party at 2 or 3. Maybe you put out the showcase food at halftime.

A 6:25 kickoff? No such thing existed all year. Why have one now? Halftime will be around 8 or 8:15. That's when we eat? Somebody go find Uncle Roy.

And, really, a Super Bowl in New Jersey? Who in the world thought this one up?

Yes, we're all proud of our great state, and yes, it's kind of amusing to hear the entire nation talking about us without mentioning our governor or "The Sopranos."

But, really, what is the reason they're having a Super Bowl in New Jersey? So that all the corporate sponsors can come and stay in New York for a few days? Hey, we all love New York, but those corporate people could come to New York any time they wanted.

Football fans? Get real.

There will be a few thousand fans from Denver and Seattle that can take off from work and pay the wild sums to come here and see the game, but they will represent maybe one-tenth of the attendance.

The huge majority of people at MetLife Stadium next Sunday couldn't care less who wins. In fact, just like every other Super Bowl, they could not have cared less which teams were playing.

Over 80 percent of the crowd will be there through corporate sponsors. A handful will travel here from Denver and Seattle and another handful will be rich folks from wherever who are willing to pay $6,000 for a ticket and jacked-up prices for hotels and everything else.

Hey, if you like pro football, then you love the Super Bowl. The game, itself, is fun to watch, and there are always a million sub-plots to follow on the field.

But a 6:25 kickoff is silly. And, for that matter, having it in New Jersey is silly.

What's the reason?

There are a million things that can go wrong. It's not going to bring big money into the state. Yes, there will be the folks at MetLife Stadium that we can fleece for a day with our state taxes, but that's about it.

What can go wrong? Name it. Just getting people onto the Meadowlands property is a complicated and convoluted procedure. Then, of course, there's the potential weather nightmare that never existed at any of the previous 47 Super Bowls.

Security? Nobody wants to go there, but, at the very least, it's going to cost millions and millions of dollars. The Jets' facility in Morris County will be home base for the AFC Broncos this week and a small army of local, state and national officers will have to guard the property around the clock all week.

Police officers from throughout the state will see some overtime for the Jersey Super Bowl, but the list of potential problems is almost endless. Problems that could never come up in any of the previous 47 Super Bowls.

So, please go to njherald.com and let us know if you come up with a reason it's being played here. Just for the heck of it?